The Great Race

Audio problem: When Prof Fate gets up from the organ it continues to play the Bach Toccata, but the keys and the pattern in the piano roll controlling the organ are not the same as the music.

Audio problem: In the beach scene near the beginning, Leslie Special comes to a screeching halt in front of Leslie's tent on a bed of sand. Can't burn rubber there.

Video

Audio problem: Throughout the pie fight and more noticeable in the first minute of it, when it's relatively quiet, the production photographer's motorized camera can be heard just before and after each pie is thrown.

Continuity mistake: This takes place at the beginning of the race, right after Prof. Fate's car breaks down. Maggie Dubois drives up, then she gets out of her car to take a picture of Prof. Fate and Max. After Maggie takes the picture, she goes to her car and sends a bird off. Then when she climbs back into her car, the camera is conveniently folded and lying in her car, although no one ever put it back.

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Trivia: The name 'DuBois', the character played by Natalie Wood, actually means 'Wood' in French.

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Question: How exactly did Leslie initially intend on crossing the Bering or Chukchi Sea from Alaska into Russia? I know he and Professor Fate end up floating on a large mass of ice to do so, but that's not exactly something you can plan for.

Phaneron

Chosen answer: The cars and drivers were supposed to make the trip by ship from North America across the Bering Strait to a Russian port, where they would resume the race. As it happened, Leslie and Fate were stranded in a blizzard on the North American side before they reached the ship. The ice beneath their cars unexpectedly broke away and drifted across the Bering Strait, improbably arriving at the intended destination port in Russia. As they drift into port, we see Leslie's right-hand man, Hezekiah, waving at them from the Russian dock, which is only possible if Hezekiah made the journey by the very ship that Leslie and Fate missed.

Charles Austin Miller

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